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Title: A commentary on Ecclesiastes

Author: Thomas Pelham Dale

Release date: January 20, 2024 [eBook #72761]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Rivingtons, 1873

Credits: Richard Hulse, Tony Browne, Brian Wilson, Bryan Ness

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
scanned images of public domain material from the
Google Books project.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A

COMMENTARY ON ECCLESIASTES ***
 A COMMENTARY
ON

ECCLESIASTES

Transcriber’s Notes
The cover image was provided by the transcriber
and is placed in the public domain.

The original text displayed the Authorized Version

of Scripture on the left page and the author’s
paraphrase on the facing right page. For the
electronic formats, these two versions for each
verse have been placed in two columns
followed immediately by the corresponding
commentary.

Punctuation has been standardized.

Most of the non-common abbreviations used to
save space in printing have been expanded to
the non-abbreviated form for easier reading.

The text may show quotations within quotations,

all set off by similar quote marks. The inner
quotations have been changed to alternate
quote marks for improved readability.

This book has illustrated drop-caps at the start of

each chapter. These illustrations may
adversely affect the pronunciation of the word
with screen-readers or not display properly in
some handheld devices.

This book was written in a period when many

words had not become standardized in their
spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the
text. These have been left unchanged unless
indicated with a Transcriber’s Note.

Index references have not been checked for

accuracy.

The symbol ‘‡’ indicates the description in

parenthesis has been added to an illustration.
This may be needed if there is no caption or if
the caption does not describe the image
adequately.

Footnotes are identified in the text with a

superscript number and are shown
immediately below the paragraph in which
they appear.
Transcriber’s Notes are used when making
corrections to the text or to provide additional
information for the modern reader. These
notes are identified by ♦♠♥♣ symbols in the
text and are shown immediately below the
paragraph in which they appear.
 A COMMENTARY
ON

ECCLESIASTES
RIVINGTONS

London Waterloo Place

Oxford High Street
Cambridge Trinity Street

A COMMENTARY
ON

ECCLESIASTES
BY THE REV.

THOMAS PELHAM DALE, M.A.

LATE FELLOW OF SIDNEY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
AND RECTOR OF ST. VEDAST WITH ST. MICHAEL LE QUERNE,
LONDON.

‫ִּד ְב ֵר י ֲחָכִמ ים ְו ִח יֹד ָת ם׃ ִי ְר ַא ת ְי הָוה♦ ֵר אִׁש ית ָּד ַעת‬

 ♦ “‫ ”ְי חָֹוה‬replaced with “‫”ְי הָוה‬

RIVINGTONS

London, Oxford, and Cambridge

1873

TO

JOHN HALL GLADSTONE, Esq. Ph. D.

F.R.S.
THROUGH WHOSE LIBERALITY IT SEES THE LIGHT,

IS THIS WORK AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY

The Author.
 PREFACE.

T HE following Commentary differs from many of

its predecessors in the greater weight given to
the interpretation of the LXX., and the closer
investigation of their peculiar renderings. In many
cases these strange renderings on the part of the
LXX. are dismissed by commentators as simply
errors. But this is not consistent with what true
criticism ought to do. The LXX. is not only the oldest
translation we have, but also the only one made
when Hebrew was yet a living language. Its peculiar
renderings then deserve our most serious attention.
The investigation of them will fully reward the
inquirer. This, then, is the cause of the special line of
interpretation adopted in this Commentary.

With regard to the Book of Ecclesiastes itself, the

writer must confess himself homo unius libri; for
some years past all his Hebrew and Greek studies
have been devoted to the investigation of the
meaning of this one book in the Sacred Canon, and
all his conclusions must be taken with the reservation
that they apply, directly, to this one book alone. Such
a concentration of effort may be expected to produce
results which might not be arrived at by a far wider
and more extensive research, just as a few rays of
sunlight concentrated by a small lens will burn where
the sun himself will only warm.

Nevertheless, this book does not profess to be

anything in the nature of a new discovery. Sense is
attempted to be made of difficult passages by what
may be called a microscopic attention to the
grammar of the writer, and a minute and careful
analysis of every form and expression he uses. The
test of the correctness of the meaning thus found is
displayed in the way in which it falls into place in the
context, and squares with its tenor. But nothing novel
in the way of Hebrew grammar is urged, or anything
which may not be found in ordinary commentaries,
except, perhaps, it be the fact of the difference of
signification between the contracted and full relative
pronoun――a usage which is peculiar to the Book of
Ecclesiastes. This has hitherto been dismissed by
other commentators as evidence of late composition,
without giving it the notice it merited.

Many points of interest are started in these

pages, which would well repay a more careful
investigation than I have either leisure or learning to
follow out. They are only presented so far as
necessary to illustrate and clear up difficulties in the
interpretation of that marvellous book which is the
subject of this Commentary. If I have succeeded, the
Church will be benefited; if I have altogether failed,
my book will only add a few pages more to the vast
literature which this, the scientific treatise of the
Divine Word, has elicited.
London, Oct. 1873.
 INTRODUCTION.
date and authorship.

T HE title or superscription of the book is, chapter

i. 1, ‘The words of Koheleth, the son of David,
king of Jerusalem,’ and this is further explained in
verse 12, by ‘I Koheleth was king over Israel in
Jerusalem.’ The only person in Jewish history who
answers exactly to this description is Solomon, and
accordingly the whole ancient Church, Jewish as well
as Christian, have regarded Solomon as the
undoubted author of the book. With this conclusion
even modern criticism is so far agreed, that it is
universally admitted that Solomon is the hero or
personated author, even though it is denied that he
was the real writer. It is alleged that internal evidence
is against the supposition of so early a date; for that
the language and tone of thought in the book point to
a writer further on in Jewish history. The favourite
opinion amongst German scholars is, that
Ecclesiastes was composed towards the end of the
Persian dominion. Ewald, indeed, considers that, so
far as language and style is concerned, the book
might be the very latest written in the whole Hebrew
Scriptures.
 A detailed history of the exposition of the book will
be found in the Coheleth of Dr. Ginsburg, together
with a complete discussion of the reasons for and
against Solomonic authorship. It will be unnecessary,
therefore, to go into detail on this point. We shall only
add what concerns the immediate object of the
present Commentary, remarking that several most
competent English-speaking scholars remain
unconvinced by arguments which have apparently
fully satisfied their German brethren. Dr. Wordsworth,
Professor Plumptre, Dr. Taylor Lewis of America,
argue that the book is really Solomon’s, while even in
Germany D. H. A. Hahn (Commentar über das
Predigerbuch, Leipzig, 1860) is strongly on the side
of the Solomonic authorship.

The principal arguments in favour of later date

derived from internal evidence, arise from (first) the
state of violence and misery depicted in the book
with so much bitterness, and which, it is alleged,
cannot be made to harmonize with what we know of
the reign of Solomon; and (secondly) the strongly
Aramaic character of the language, which assimilates
itself to that of the books of Daniel and Esther. With
regard to the first point (if we have at all found the
real interpretation of the book), it seems improbable
that any special description of a particular period
could have been ever intended, or even any allusion
to the special circumstances of any people. So far
also from supposing a time of trouble in the mind of
the writer, on the contrary the point and moral of the
book will be enhanced if we suppose it to be written
rather in a time of prosperity than of adversity or
oppression. Thus, if we turn to the expressions of
chapter iv. 1 we shall see that to give any special
reference to them, and suppose them peculiar or out
of the way, would weaken the force of Koheleth’s
argument. Human life generally, under the very best
of external circumstances, always exhibits the
spectacle both of oppressions by the wicked, and of
oppressed without comforters. Now underneath this
statement lies the difficulty that He who permits this
is the merciful Author of Nature Himself, and it is this
difficulty which is especially discussed. There is no
necessity to suppose the concluding years of Persian
tyranny to be pointedly alluded to, because it is not
under an Asiatic despotism alone that hypocrites
come and go from the place of the holy (chapter
viii. 10), or servants are seen on horseback, and
nobles, like serfs, walking afoot (chapter x. 7), or that
men continue in prosperous wickedness (chapter
ix. 3). Indeed, the same may be said of any other of
the similar providential difficulties advanced in this
book, for the very same occurrences may be
witnessed now in this age of civilisation and
progress. The reply then to the assertion that it is
‘impossible to reconcile this state of things with the
age of Solomon’ is simply this. There is no need
even to make the attempt, because there is no
reason to believe that, considering the author’s
standpoint, he intended that the instances of human
suffering and disappointment he cites should be
taken otherwise than perfectly generally. What he
adduces of this nature is in sufficient measure true
always, at the best of times. It would blunt the point
of his reasoning if it could be shown that the
difficulties he starts were exceptional or temporary;
but this is not so. Koheleth’s repeated declaration is
that all――that is, the whole of human life――is
vanity or evanescence.

The argument from Aramaic words is much more

formidable, and would be conclusive if our
knowledge of the successive stages of the Hebrew
language were less fragmentary and uncertain than
is really the case. It is quite true that such words as
‫מדינה‬, ‫רעיון‬, ‫רעות‬, ‫כבר‬, ‫זמן‬, ‫פתגם‬, have an Aramaic
colouring; but we must set against this the fact that,
as Ewald remarks, we have in Ecclesiastes a new
philosophical terminology, which has modified the
Hebrew of the book. And again, it will be seen by
referring to the places where these peculiar words
occur, that they are introduced either for the
purposes of expressing new ideas or terms not found
in the language elsewhere. Sometimes the more
usual word would be out of harmony with the context,
e.g. the word ‫ זמון‬replaces the more ordinary ‫מיעד‬,
because not only is the latter used to signify a feast,
but the root-meaning of the former is just what is
required by the argument. Again, ‫כבר‬, as will be seen
stated at length in the notes, is used in the purely
technical sense, of ‘this present,’ and not in the
ordinary meaning of ‘already.’ The unusual ♦ ‫אלו‬,
chapter vi. 6, also is apparently introduced for the
sake of the alliteration with ‫ הלא‬in the next clause,
and the once occurring ‫ ֲעֶד ן‬chapter iv. 3, for the sake
of the equivoke to which its use gives rise. All these
Aramaic words are noticed as they occur in the body
of the Commentary, and we think that the conclusion
which results from what there appears is to weaken
very considerably any argument as to date which can
be drawn from them one way or the other.

♦ “‫ ”הלא‬replaced with “‫”אלו‬

Again, the object of the book is so peculiar, and

so different from all the rest of Scripture, and
especially from those which, supposing Solomon was
the author, would stand related to it in point of time,
that we may well expect some difference of language
and colouring. Again, also, there is another reason.
The books immediately subsequent to Solomon’s era
are all prophetic. Now it seems natural that prophets
should use an antique style, which would be tinged
with that of the earlier religious books, while if, on the
other hand, as the LXX. seem to imply by their
translation of the word Koheleth, and appears also
from the alliterations in the book itself, it were an
address orally delivered, it would no doubt contain
colloquialisms. There are strong indications that it
does so. Now these colloquialisms would certainly
have an Aramaic cast about them. Thus the
difference of diction between the Hebrew of Koheleth
and a contemporary prophet would be exaggerated,
and any estimate of date due to this difference
proportionately uncertain.

On the whole, for myself, I have no theory to

support either way. I am content to let the matter rest,
as I believe the Scripture itself leaves it, which, after
all, nowhere refers the authorship to Solomon. In
accordance with this, both to save space and to
conduce to clearness, I have always referred to the
author by the name Koheleth, and to the book itself
as Ecclesiastes, in the course of the subsequent
Commentary.
 design and method of the work.

The design of the book is no other than

argumentatively to work out the concluding aphorism
of the whole: ‘Fear God, and keep His
commandments, for this is the whole problem of
Humanity.’ This truth is never for a moment lost sight
of, not even in those passages which sound most
sceptical or Epicurean. We may compare this
marvellous book to an overture, and say that this
truth is its subject. This overture, however, is written
in a minor key; it is almost always plaintive;
sometimes it descends to what sounds like absolute
discord; but this subject floats through its wildest and
strangest melodies, resolves its harshest discords,
connects its most erratic wanderings. Koheleth is a
perfect master of sarcasm. A certain grim and bitter
yet grave and holy satire runs through his book. He
makes his readers think whether they will or no. For
this purpose he sometimes descends to plays upon
words, equivokes, alliterations, possibly also
proverbs in ordinary circulation. He certainly writes in
the ‘vulgar tongue.’ But these equivokes always help
the sense. If Koheleth appears in the guise of a
popular preacher, he never loses sight of the moralist
and philosopher. His sermon, for such we believe it
to be, will bear comparison with another wonderful
sermon found in Holy Scripture, with which it has